Mamta Kalia

Lecture
32 :: April-June 2010
In Memory of Rahul Sankrityayan
LOCALISM VERSUS NATIONALISM
AND INTERNATIONALISM
With Special Reference to Uttarakhand
P.C. Joshi
It is a matter of great happiness and pride for me that the Rahul
Commemoration Lecture Series, organized by Pahad, is being
inaugurated with my lecture. At the same time, I am also conscious
of my limitations. I had even told Dr. Shekhar Pathak that a
lecture in the memory of Rahulji and that, too, the first in the
series should be delivered by someone with a deep knowledge
and understanding of the legacy left by him. I am not particularly
conversant with that legacy. I should have been but I am not,
and this I admit in all modesty. Despite this limitation, I have
accepted this invitation.
Although I had not been familiar with the thinking and creative
works of Rahulji, I was certainly acquainted with him. I was greatly
elated when turning the pages of his book “Koormanchal”, I found
a photograph. Although, I was not there in this photograph my
maternal uncle, maternal aunt and a few other persons from Almora
could be seen in it. Then I remembered that in 1950 or thereabout
English rendering of the revised version of the first Rahul Sankrityayan
Memorial Lecture delivered on May 6, 1986 under the auspices of
Pahad at Nainital, Uttarakhand, then part of Uttar Pradesh. The explosion
of regional demands for separate statehood in different parts of India
to–day (e.g. in Telangana, Vidarbha and some other parts) makes
the discussion of the theme in this lecture relevant.